


half empty girl

by palaces_outofparagraphs



Series: after laughter [5]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Gen, alison and spencer slowly working out their issues, alison is a cute teacher and all her students love her, anti ezra, everyone dealing with trauma and ptsd and healing slowly, everything is emotional and everything hurts, hanna and spence have a heart to heart and everyone cries, so much anti ezra, so much crying, spencer goes back to high school to give a Fancy Lawyer Talk, warsan shire references, when u accidentally pour your soul into a pll fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 18:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11583873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_outofparagraphs/pseuds/palaces_outofparagraphs
Summary: - trying to fill herself up to the top. Alison asks Spencer to give a talk on success in her eleventh grade class, and Spencer finds herself back in Rosewood High. She tries to reach the girl she used to be. A lot of emotion ensues.





	half empty girl

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is the most intense story in this collection yet and also deeply personal so I really hope you guys like it. Also parts of Spencer's inner monologue is inspired by Warsan Shire's beautiful poem "love letter to self," which you should all go read immediately because it's incredible.

“Listen. It would just mean a lot to me.”

_ How many times has Alison said that to me,  _ Spencer thinks, winding a lock of hair around her finger. She is still lying in bed. It is Saturday, and Toby is in the kitchen, making breakfast, and she is on the phone with Alison, who had called, with, as Alison so often did, a cajoling request.

_ that’s not nice, _ she admonishes herself, her mental voice lapsing vaguely into one that resembled Emily’s.  _ Ali’s changed. _

She pushes back many mental sarcastic remarks. “I know,” she says carefully. “I just..” she sighs, stretching out under her covers. “What would it entail, again?”

“Half an hour, tops,” says Alison. “Look, we’re reading a lot of Charlotte Gilman Perkins. And I just feel like - it would be really inspiring, for some of the girls.”

“To see a traumatized twenty five year old crawling to the end of law school, ninety five percent  _ dead?” _

“ _ No.  _ To see a _ successful woman. _ ”

“You’re a succesful woman,” says Spencer irately. “Your wife is a successful woman. Hanna is a successful woman! Aria is a sucessful woman!”

“Yes, but you’re not  _ married.  _ And you don’t have kids.”

“Alison, that is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me. Also, Aria’s not married.”

“Aria is a whole different conversation, Spencer, and you know it. Listen. I just want them to see, that in this modern day and age, a woman can be twenty five, in law school, successful, and have absolutely no need for a husband! Or wife,” she amends. “Not that I’m not a successful woman. The point is you can do it  _ independently. _ Of a man.”

“Just call Emily,” she says reasonably. “Neither of you need the support of a man.”

“Yes, well, I love Emily with all my heart, but you are in  _ law school. _ Plus, Em’s the gym teacher. They already know how cool she is.”

“I have a boyfriend, though,” she reminds her.

“Yes, exactly.”

This is maddening, and Spener pushes down the extremely uncharitable thought that Alison has not changed  _ one little bit.  _ “What, because I’m in law school, I might as well move to  _ herland!?” _

“No,” says Alison. “Why are you being so dramatic about this? I just want you to come speak to my class.”

Because the thought of stepping into Rosewood High makes her sick to her stomach, makes her want to never get out of bed, makes her want to bury her head in Toby’s chest and never lift it up again. “I’m not being dramatic,” she says. “I just..” she trails off. She is, she’s aware, being dramatic in this situation, where she should be flattered.

_ sorry, it’s the trauma, _ is a sarcastic thought she can’t quite flatten down.

“I just.” If it was Hanna, or Emily, or Aria, it would be so easy to say,  _ I would rather effing die than step foot into Rosewood High, beause I think if I do, i might actually die anyway.  _ And it isn’t that she doesn’t trust Alison, or love her like another sister, and it’s not that she hasn’t forgiven her for anything - God knows Ali’s been enough of her share of hell to warrant it, to share in their pain.

But..

She doesn’t talk to anyone but Toby about it, because she doesn’t want any of fher friends to know that she thinks this way. But sometimes, when she talks to Alison, she can’t help quite shake the feeling that Ali doesn’t  _ really  _ understand.

Ali wasn’t there. Not in the Dollhouse. Not for that wretched first few years of A. 

She loves Ali. She really, fully loves her. But Ali doesn’t  _ really  _ understand.

And, not even really in a bad way, but the tempestous competition between Ali and Spencer has never  _ really  _ died. So their conversations can get tense. And Spencer has trouble admitting weakness to anyone, and it goes times five hundred for Alison.

Because - she’s still, well,  _ Alison. _

“I just don’t know if it would be a good idea,” she says instead.

“They’ll love you. They’ll, like,  _ love  _ you.” Alison is not letting this one go. “Look, it’s nothing against anyone else I know. But we’re doing our unit on women’s empowerment through literature, you know? Charlotte Gilman Perkins, Sylvia Plath, Louisa May Alcott...you’re graduating from law school in two months, you have an incredible job lined up - ”

“Most  _ probably. _ ”

“You’re not married, you don’t have kids, you’re  _ exactly the kind of empowered woman I am looking for. _ ”

“Is that not kind of sexist in and of itself?” says Spencer languidly.

“So you’ll do it?!”

Spencer sighs heavily. “I’m not married and I don’t have kids, like, ninety percent because of the trauma. And I have a boyfriend, who I frequently cry to.”

“Whatever.”

Why is life so damnedly simple for Ali? “Okay, fine, whatever, I’ll do it. When do you want me to come in?”

Her squeal on the other end of the line makes her feel like she’s fifteen. And, miraculously, not in a traumatized way, for once.   
  


-

“I can’t believe you agreed to this,” says Hanna, when Spencer invites herself over to dinner two nights later. She hasn’t seen Hanna in too long, and having dinner with her, Caleb, and two year old, menacingly adorable Ashlynne - all her mother’s attitude, all her father’s charm - was like comfort food for the soul. Afterwards, Ashlynne pitches a convincing fit to go out for ice cream, and Caleb takes her, promising to bring some back for Spencer and Hanna, and Spencer lies across the couch, Hanna flicking on their old favorite music, and they lie head-to-head on her adjoining sectional and gossip like they’re teenagers. They crack open a window and let the almost summer air breeze in, and Spencer feel unfetteredly happy the way Hanna makes her feel for the first time in a long time.

“Right?” She sighs heavily. “Why is it  _ still _ so hard to say no to Alison?”

“Aria thinks she conditioned us from a young age to have protective instincts over her,” says Hanna. “She doesn’t think it was her fault or anything, just that Ali was a really screwed up teenager who needed control in her life and took it out on all of us.”

“Well,  _ yeah, _ she did that second bit, but I dunno about the conditioning part.”

“Well, that’s Aria’s theory.”

Spencer raises an eyebrow. “What’s your theory?”

“It’s very scientific,” says Hanna, grinning, propping herself up on one elbow. “In any friend group, the blond one is the one who has the most power.”

Spencer snorts into laughter at the ridiculousness. “ _ You’re  _ blond!”

“Yes, but I used to be fat and insecure,” says Hanna matter of factly. “So we just flocked around Ali, and we got used to her being the boss, even when she was dead she was totally the boss. So now we can’t say no.”

“We should get her to dye her hair red. See if your theory holds up.” They both laugh racuously.

“But seriously, Han,” says Spencer, softer, “I dunno how I’m going to do it. I have no  _ clue _ how Emily does it every day. Or Alison,” she adds as an afterthought. “I dunno...walking in there. It’s all going to come back. All at one.”

Hanna is quiet for a moment. “The other day I was dropping Ashlynne off at daycare,” she says, playing with her fingers. Hanna is a full time, stay at home mother, but Ashlynne goes to daycare two mornings a week to interact with other kids, and so Hanna can do her eight hours worth of work from home on her fashion designs. “And after she went inside, I sat in the car in the parking lot for a few minutes, just watching the other moms...I do that sometimes. It’s kinda weird how many people who look like our age wear those seriously gross mom jeans we swore we’d never wear.” Spencer snorts. “And then...this woman got out of the car. She had crazy curly blond hair,  _ cascading  _ down her back like, with a little two year old blond to match. And she - ” Hanna’s voice catches. “She was wearing this bright red coat.”

Spencer’s heart sinks. “Oh, Han.”

“Yeah.” Hanna tries to laugh but it gets caught in her throat, a phemonemon Spencer is entirely too familiar with. “Yeah I - um, just cried in the parking lot for like half an hour.”

Spencer stands up and collapses instead onto the couch Hanna’s on, curling up next to her and hugging her tight. “Been there,” she says.

“I know.” Hanna isn’t quite crying, but she’s shaking, and she leans gratefully onto Spencer. “I know. We’ve all been there, crying in parking lots. But damn...I know it’s like, you’re not just going to wake up one day and it’ll be fine. But don’t you wish all the time that - ?”

“That it was easier,” says Spencer, wrapping an arm tighter around Hanna. “Yeah. I wish that all the time.”

“And it’s always the stupidest things, too. Red  _ coats,  _ I mean.”

“Phones beeping.”

“Bells ringing.”

“God, those are the worst. Oh, and loudspeaker announcements, in general.”

“Those make my stomach hurt so bad.”

“Switch panels. The other day me and Toby were in Lowe’s, and I saw a selection of switches, and I had to leave.”

“I would’ve cried.”

“Maybe not. What else… going to the eye doctor still stresses me out.”

“Going to the dentist makes me hyperventilate. So I just don’t go.”

“Han! Your teeth are all going to rot!”

“I don’t care! Better rot than have someone stick their fingers up my mouth!” Spencer is laughing, even though there’s nothing funny about the situation, and so is Hanna. Spencer sighs hugely, propping her feet up on coffee table and leaning her head on Hanna’s shoulder.

“Do you think it’s too late to call in sick?” she murmurs. 

Hanna snorts with laughter. “Hey. The Spencer Hastings I know wouldn’t even call in sick when she  _ was  _ sick.”

Spencer rolls her eyes, smiling slightly, combing her fingers through her hair. “I dunno...I’m just scared.” It gets a little easier to admit that every time, even if she does hate how often she has to say it. “Scared I’ll just...go in there, see those hallways, and every text will come rushing back into my head, and I’ll just drop to my knees and cry.”

“Well, even if you do,” says Hanna. “You’re an adult who can leave high school whenever she wants. So if you start feeling sick, or like you can’t take it, you have to leave, okay, Spence? I know you promised Ali, but you have to leave.”

“Okay,” says Spencer tiredly. “Okay. I...it’s not even that I  _ want  _ to do this. It’s - well, it’s a favor, first off, but now I feel like, if I don’t…” she trails off, and Hanna smiles, slightly bitter.

“We’re always gonna be playing this damn game, aren’t we?” Hanna says after a few moments. The summer air feels cooler, somehow, like a draft has come in.

“Maybe not always,” says Spencer. “But for now, yeah. I don’t know if I’m trying to win or if I’m trying to beat it. Also, sometimes I don’t know if I’m trying to beat the game, or the host of mental illnesses it gave me.”

“They might actually be the same thing at this point,” says Hanna wryly.

Spencer sighs. “Yeah. Probably.”

“You can do this, Spence,” says Hanna softly, a few moments later. “You really can. You’re so strong, and so brave, and you love giving passionate speeches.”

Spencer sighs, a smile easing onto her fae. “I really, really hope so,” she says softly. “I really hope so.”

The door opens then, and Ashlynne - less than three feet tall and a ball of determined sunshine - barrels in, calling. “Mama Mama Mama Auntie  _ Spence!”  _ She flings herself furiously into Spencer’s arms. “Auntie  _ Spence!” _ she repeats fiercely, her little face so scrunched up with absolute joy that Spencer feels her heart grow three sizes. “You  _ here!” _

Hanna bursts into laughter as Caleb comes into the room, grinning, holding two plastic cups of ice cream. “I think Ash’s favorite is clear,” she says wryly, as Spencer squeezes the girl tight.

“Yeah, what’s so good about Auntie Spence, huh?” teases Caleb, dropping down next to Hanna on the couch and kissing her on the cheek, handing her her ice cream and placing Spencer’s on the coffee table. “What does she have that Mama and Daddy don’t have?”

“Auntie Spence bring more p’esent?” says Ashlynne hopefully, and all three adults burst into laughter, Spencer rocking back and forth with the child in her lap, feeling a small zip of absolute joy sprinkle through her - the light, peaceful kind of joy that makes it all worth it.

“There we go,” says Spencer, grinning. “ _ No,  _ baby, not today. Next time, I promise.”

“O _ kaaaaay, _ ” says Ashlynne, cuddling into her arms regardless. “Aunty Spence, Aunty Spence, you know? P’eschool? I go! I go p’eschool!”

“Do you?” says Spencer interestedly. “Do you have  _ friends  _ at preschool?”

Hanna and Caleb rise and drift towards the kitchen, but Spencer stays on the couch for a while, cuddling Ashylnne. There is something so wonderful about spending time with this child - it makes her happier than almost anything in the world. Her sweet, pink chubby cheeks. Her long streams of golden hair that remind her of how Hanna looked in her teens, so clearly it makes something within her ache. The way she babbles on and on and on with no reserve, the way she’s been raised with love and only love, and she only ever will be. The way she loves with no conditions, the way she has no notion of the word pain, the way she is so young, so free, and loves her with no reservations. The way she loves her Auntie Spence simply because she’s her Auntie Spence, who brings her presents and gives her hugs and listens with utmost patience to all her stories, every time. 

Spencer sits with Ashlynne for almost half an hour, and after she surrenders her back to Hanna, hugs Hanna and Caleb both a dozen times each, thanks them both a hundred times for dinner and dessert, recieves her own thousand thanks for coming, and goes on like that for awhile, she gets into her car, rolls down the window and turns up the radio, and drives home with something approaching serenity down to her core.

Later that night, curled in bed with Toby, she rests her cheek on his shoulder, nestling close. “Hey babe, do you think we could have kids someday?” she murmurs. It’s something they almost never talk about, considering her pregnancy scare in college, but here, under the cover of darkness and the actual covers, it feels like fair game.

“Yeah, absolutely,” his voice comes in the darkness, and her heart aches with the simplicity with which he says it. He is tracing spirals and curlicues on his on his back with her fingers, and she is heavy with contentment. “We can have as many as you want. Three or four little Spencers and Tobys running around.”  
She muffles a laugh into his shoulder. “ _No,_ but _could_ we? Like, is it _possible?”_

“Of course it’s possible. I shouldn’t think you, of all people, need a biological lesson.” His voice slides just into taunting, and she feels herself flush and grin at once.

“You know what I mean,” she mumbles. Sleep is coming. “Like...I read a study one, and like some bajillion percent of kids who’s parents have PTSD are more screwed up than normal parents. So what if we have kids and screw them up?”

“Spence.” He rolls over so he’s facing her, cupping her face in his hands. “You would be the world’s best mother. Ever. Okay?”

“Even with the PTSD.”

“Yes.”

“And the anxiety.”

“Obviously.”

“And the tinges of OCD.”

“Definitely.”

“And - ” he cuts her off by kissing her, which is her favorite way to be cut off.

“You are perfect,” he murmurs, this time into her shoulder. “You’ll be a great mother, whenever we decide to have kids. And tomorrow, you’re gonna inspire the hell outta those little girls.”

She smiles, draping her legs over his. “Probably shouldn’t mention this conversation, though,” she murmurs. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs back. “Actually, probably shouldn’t mention a lot of this conversation.”

They don’t fall asleep for quite some time.

\--

She wakes up with a stomachache and a resolve of steel, and she gets out of bed before Toby, for once, chanting,  _ you can do this you can do this you can do this  _ to herself before her feet even hit the cold floor. She goes into the kitchen and brews herself an extra-strong cup of coffee, not even putting in a splash of cream as she’s growing a tendency to. She screws up her brain and tries to summon the same strength she had when she was sixteen.

_ I am stronger than that now,  _ she tells herself, but she’s not sure if she believes it. Not even necessarily in a negative way. She just truly isn’t sure if she’ll ever be stronger than who she was at sixteen - undergoing pretty much constant psychological torture, not knowing what the names of her mental illnesses were, being blamed for being kissed by adults, and, on top of it all, doing, like, history homework every night.

And  _ gym. _ God, she forgot about gym. And the pacer test. She shudders aloud, taking a sip of her coffee and feeling tiny bits rejuvenated. 

“Ready for high school, Hastings?” She grins as Toby ambles into the kitchen, barefoot, sleepy-eyed, clad only in pajama bottoms. He yawns hugely, wandering over to kiss her on the cheek, steals a sip of her coffee.

“Well, I never got  _ this  _ morning treatment in high school,” she says, turning to brew him his own cup. He laughs, running both hands through his hair.

“You’ll be okay,” he says, a few minutes of companionable silence later. “You’ll be good. Inspiring. All of it.”

Spener sighs enormously. Her coffee is almost finished. “I hope so,” she says. “I hope so. I just want - ” there is so much she wants, it’s all asking too much of her coffee. Too much of Toby. She wants to go back, undo it all, start again from scratch, but this time, with what she knows in handy.

He comes closer, nudges her gently with his shoulder, rests a hand on the small of her back. “If you feel for even one second you can’t breathe,” he says in her ear, “call me. Promise?”

“I promise,” she says. She leans against him for a second. “Do you ever think about your sixteen year old self and just want to cry?”  
“All the time,” he mutters, and she hugs him, then straightens. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.” She isn’t, but sixteen year old Spencer never was either, and she graduated with a 4.4 GPA. So there is nothing that can stop adult Spencer from heading out the door now.

\--

“Thank you  _ so  _ much for coming!” Alison is twitteirng around the room, in full teacher mode, and Spencer lingers in the doorway, trying to keep her stomach still, holding onto her second cup of coffee - whcih she picked up on the way to school, because she’s an adult now and can do things like that - and trying her best to smile and listen to what Ali is saying. But there’s a buzzing drowning out her words, and being back here is dizzyingly terrifying.

Ali. Ali, a teacher. And Spencer, standing to give a presentation - in the doorframe of Ezra’s old classroom.

As she thinks his name, a fresh stab of anger goes through her. Anger to that grown man preying on her sixteen year old best friend, stalking them all, playing the victim every time, and she steels herself. She can do this.

“So I’ll just introduce you,” Alison is saying as Spencer forces herself back to earth, “and then you can go right into it. You can keep it loose..make sure you take questions. Just hit the points on what you do, what you’re planning on doing, struggles you faced as a woman...all that.”

Spencer bites back a thousand sarcastic remarks - really, she has no idea why talking to Alison, who she really does love, dearly, makes her want to be sarcastic, snarky, sixteen year old Spencer.

Or maybe it’s something about being back here. God, being back here. The lockers, the floors, the paint on the walls. None of it’s changed - at least, it doesn’t feel like it has. It all feels gut-crunchingly, soul slammingly, exactly how it used to be. She feels like she could leave the room, bump into Aria, walk Hanna down to the cafeteria, sleep through a history class.

It’s too much. It is all too much, and she wants to run, but she can’t. She can’t, and she thinks instead of Toby, her hand tightening around her phone in her pocket - for once, mercifully, her phone isn’t giving her anxiety, maybe because her brain is busy going into overdrive about everything else.  _ If it gets too much anymore, I’ll call him, _ she thinks, _ and he’ll come get me. He’ll come get me. _

This, too, at least, sixteen year old Spencer had. And the thought makes her feel a little bit calmer.

“So!” Alison is grinning, and she looks so right, like she fits right in here, and Spencer can’t stop thinking of the girl who ruled and terroized thie kingdom in turn. Now a mother of twins, a wife, a teacher.  _ We all grew up, _ she thinks, a strange moment of depersonalization, looking down at her hands - broad, a a scar across her left middle finger from a game a long time ago; a scorch mark in the palm of her right hand from a day at the Dollhouse she’s spent her life trying to forget - and feeling like they’re not hers.  _ We all grew up, and here we are.  _ “Do you know what you’re going to talk about, generally?”

_ Speak, _ she reminds herself, and clears her throat. “Uh, well - yeah, i mean. I was just going to talk about law school. And sexist professors, but how they don’t ultimately matter.” This is about as far as she had thought, as her prepation for this day, more than anything, was trying to focus on just getting through the door of Rosewood High.

She half had not expected herself to get this far into the school. She is strangely proud of herself.

“Try to stay generally positive,” Ali reminds her. “Talk about your strenghts more than the things that have brought you down.”

_ oh, like the trauma? _

_ Why can’t you ever speak to Alison normally, even in your head?  _ she demands of herself.  _ What is wrong with you? _

She knows the answer, but she doesn’t want to look at it, so she shifts gears, or tries to. “Got it,” she says, trying to make her voice sound normal - but what is normal, anyway, how does she usually talk? She forgets sometimes. Sometimes she thinks her whole life is a series of inonsistent Spencers, that she is not one person, but a million masquerading as one another. “I’ll do my best, anyway.”

“That’s all we can ask,” says Alison, sounding both so sincere, and so teacher like, that she can’t help but grin, and feel bad for being so mean to Ali, inside her head, all the time. Ali bends her head over a sheaf of papers, trailing one finger down a sheet, the other finger tracing patterns on her desk, lined with kniknkacs - a framed picture of Ali and Emily, one of the family, and, as Spencer looks closer, one of all the girls, all five of them, at maybe fourteen.

She never noticed that before. Too many feelings collide in her heart - or is it her brain? sixteen year old Spencer would know. - and she takes a breath. Ali, who has been through just as much as them, she reminds herself. Just differently.

“Hey, Ali, isn’t this so weird?” Spencer says, and she doesn’t really expect her to understand. “Just - ”

Ali looks up, and her face is sad and happy at the same time, and Spencer realizes with a jolt that actually, Ali does understand. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. It’s the weirdest thing in the world.”

“Being..”

“Real people,” finishes Alison. She straightens, arranging the pictures on her desk. “People who..” she trails off.

“Survived,” says Spencer in a small voice.

Ali doesn’t look at her for a moment, but she nods slowly, and when she faces her, biting down loosely on her lower lip and looking, suddenly, so young - so much like she used to be - she’s not quite smiling and not quite frowning, and there is something intensely, deeply familiar in her eyes. “Yeah,” Ali says. “Yeah.”

In her eyes, there is the same relief that Spencer always has, buried deep wthin. Relief that they survived.

The bell rings, then, and cihldren began to stream into the room. Spencer hangs by the whiteboard and watches them - crowds of kids, God,  _ kids , _ they’re sixteen, but they’re  _ children,  _ this is how old they were when it all happened, this is how small they were when it all happened, it seems impossible, unfathomable. 

She thinks of Ezra, again, and a bolt of rage so strong it almost knocks her down goes through her. How dare he. How effing  _ dare  _ he, look at a sixteen year old, a  _ child,  _ and do -

do  _ that - _

Aria told him she wouldn’t go to the cops about everything if he left Rosewood and never came back, and he did. None of them know where he is now. Spencer really, really wanted her to go to the cops, but she never pressed it, because Aria was in enough sharp, vivid pain, and she didn’t need to ever speak to a Rosewood cop ever again. So she let it go, let him leave. But here and now, watching these sixteen year olds, these  _ kids, _ file into the room, she feels an incredible urge to find him. Find him and  _ hurt  _ him, for what he did to Aria.

To all of them. But mostly, to Aria.

Alison cuts into her interal monologue by clapping her hands loudly. “Good morning, everyone,” she says loudly.

“Good morning, Mrs. Fields,” they more or less chorus, and Spencer smiles.  _ Mrs Fields  _ never fails to make her smile.

“Like I was saying, today we have a guest speaker,” she says, motioning to Spencer, who kind of waves. “Please greet Ms Hastings.”

“Hello, Ms Hastings,” they more or less chorus, less enthusiastically, and she suppresses a grin, picking out faces she’s seen around town in the crowd. There’s a boy who does volunteer work for Toby and Jason’s business in the summer, a girl lives across the street from them, a girl she’s seen at the grocery store a hundred times. And, more importantly, she picks out faces that shees herself, and her friends in, almost ten years ago.

“As you all know, in our study of women writers and feminist themes,” Ali is saying, “we’ve been putting a lot of work into defining what it means to be a _ successful woman.  _ Who can give me some of what we’ve come up with, over the past week?”

A girl thrusts her hand into the air so quickly she reminds Spencer of herself. Ali smiles. “Yes, Meghan?”

“A successful woman is someone who overcomes challenges and battles like sexism and stupid men,” says Meghan without preamble, inciting laughter and some protests from boys who look nothing like she remembered the boys in school looking like junior year - could it be possible Toby had been that small? “She perserveres.”

“Good answer. Anyone else?”

A few more girls and a couple of boys call things out or are called on, and Ali writes key words on the board.  _ Perserverance, tenacity, determination, resolve, intelligence, wealth, happiness. _

“Great work, everyone,” she says. “Well, today we have brought in a guest speaker that embodies all these words and more.” She sweeps her hand over the board and Spencer blushes, as all the children focus on her with slightly more interest. “This is Spencer Hastings, a successful law student three months from graduating, with an incredible, high powered job lined up almost straight out of school. She’s currently interning at that job, helping work every day on powerful cases that will change the fabric of society. Spencer is twenty five, happily unmarried, with no children; she also happens to be one of the strongest women I know, and one of my best friends.” The kids actually clap at this, as Spencer steps forward, feeling mingled guilt for how she’s been thinking of Ali all day and week (and life) roiling in her stomach, along with bursting pride, something like nervousness, and the general cloud of dread that accompanies high school.

But now, something new: an unexpected surge of power.

Spencer was always good at class presentations. Nay,  _ incredible. _

“Success.” Her voice almost echoes, and there are eyes glued to hers. She realizes with a start that these kids, they know who she is. They were in the older years of elementary school all the times she and her friends were getting arrested; probably early middle school when the Dollhouse news, and Mona’s alleged death, was everywhere. They probably half-heartedly followed the news of Cece’s arrest, trial, and subsequent placing in a mental hospital; and then, five years later, inching into high school, her death. They’d probably watched her life on the news since childhood, listened to their mothers use the girls as warnings for not to go out at night. Sang that  _ pretty little lies  _ jump rope song that used to be popular.

It should scare her, but it doesn’t. It should irritate her, but it doesn’t.

_ I’m still here,  _ she thinks instead, absurdly.  _ And damn right I’m graduating law school in two months. _

“Success can mean a lot of things, as I’m sure you guys have all talked about,” she says, running her hands over the smooth wood of Ali’s desk. “But here’s the thing about being successful - specifically, a successful woman.” She catches the eye of Meghan, who thrust her hand up in the air so quickly, and feels her heart almost  _ crunch, _ imagining sixteen year old Spencer sitting there. Sixteen year old Hanna, hating herself for her weight; sixteen year old Emily, hating herself for who she loved; sixteen year old Aria, preyed on by a teacher. Sixteen year old Spencer, scared of the world and covering it up by being the Most, and terrified, terrified that one day it would all slip out of her hands.

Her heart aches.

“No one is ever going to do it for you,” she says. “If you are a young woman - or an old woman, or in between - this world is  _ not  _ on your side.” Her hands are shaking, but they are watching her, and Ali doesn’t cut her off, so she goes on. “Everything you want, you are going to have to go after with your own two hands. There will be people - so, so many people - who try to hold you back. Who try to tear you down. Who try to hurt you.” She pauses. “You have to put yourself first,” she says, and then she imagines sixteen year old Spencer sitting in the row in front of her, little Spencer, looking for hope, looking for something, anything, that would give her the answers. She sees Aria, and Hanna, and Emily.

She turns, looking at Alison.

“You can do  _ anything, _ ” she says, “if you damnedly  _ refuse  _ to let anyone stop you. If you put yourself, your wellbeing, and your survival before  _ all  _ else - if you lean on the people who love you, and only the people who want the best for you, because letting them help is a form of strength itself - you can do  _ anything. _ You can survive  _ anything _ this world throws at you.”

_ we did. We did. We survived it all. We didn’t even know we could survive it all, but we did. _

“Success is a state of mind,” she says. She sweeps her hand across the board. “There are days I have none of this. There are days I’m at my lowest. But you know what makes me successful - if I can call myself that, I mean, thanks Ali - ” there’s a rumble of laughter, which is more of a relief than anything else - “ - is that every single time I have my lowest day, a day with no perseverance, where I don’t know what tenacity is, where my determination and resolve is at zero - days where I have  _ nothing,  _ I keep going. I survive by sheer force of will alone, and I wake up the next day, and I do it again.”

There are tears stinging her eyes, which is ridiculous, but was expected. She wonders how ridiculous she sounds, from the outsides, but decides she doesn’t care.

This is everything baby Spencer needed to hear. And that’s all she needs.

“If someone is holding you back,” she says, “don’t fear them. Become stronger than them.” She swallows. “If someone is hurting you, too often we as women chalk it up to a part of life. Part of your strength is knowing how to deal with people who hurt you. You should always fight back. You should trust your instincts and your friends, in that order, and you should go to people who can help, if you need it.”

_ Oh Aria, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t any of our fault. But oh, Aria, I wish we had known better. _

“You are defined by what you  _ do, _ ” she says, “not what you  _ look _ like.”

_ Oh, Hanna.  _ She glances, without meaning to, at Ali.  _ Alison was just a messed up, broken little girl like the rest of us. You never should have let her into your head. _

_ Neither should you have,  _ she tells herself. And with that, she feels some of the pent up resentment she has towards Ali draining away, piece by piece.

“Never be ashamed of who you are,” she says, thinking of Emily. “Be proud of it. Be open about it. It will get you far.”

“I can attest to that,” pipes up Alison, and the children laugh, startled this time, at their teacher.

_ Their teacher.  _ Ali was a broken girl who broke the rest of them, turn by turn; maybe, in a way, none of it would have happened if she had been kinder. But nor would it have happened, maybe, if her father hadn’t done all he had done. There are a hundred thousand million reasons that it all happened, and Spencer sees a little more clearly that she needs to forgive Alison, if no one else in the world.

“And most importantly…” there is so much she would tell herself, if sixteen year old Spencer was sitting in front of her, biting down gently on her lower lip, tapping her pen against the desk. “Please, put yourself first sometimes. Be kind to yourself. Success will only come if you’re there to see it - so take care of yourself, more than anyone else.”

Her voice breaks. “ _ Please  _ take care of yourselves,” she says. “You deserve that much.”

_ You deserve that much, silly girl, I forgive you, Spencer. I forgive you for everything you did and didn’t do. I forgive you for all the pain, the drugs, the bad days, the cold. You were sixteen years old, and you didn’t deserve any of it. I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you. _

The students probably don’t take much of it in, because sixteen year olds never do. But they clap politely and ask some careful questions, about law school - which, Spencer realizes, is probably what they  _ expected  _ for her to talk about, but oh well - and about the real world, and even about college. 

One girl raises her hand. “This isn’t to be rude or anything,” she says, her voice already apologetic, “but how come Mrs. Fields says you’re  _ happily unmarried?  _ Like, is there anything  _ to  _ that?”

Spencer laughs, and so does Alison, and some of the class. “Well, I think Ali - Mrs. Fields was trying to point out that marriage is not a tenant of success,” she says, “which is an important point to make - ”’

“Damn straight it isn’t,” calls out someone from the back, and everyone laughs.

“Mason,” says Alison reprimandingly.

“Sorry,” says Mason, and Spencer tries to stop laughing.

“Anyway,” she says, “um, yeah. I can’t really afford to get married right now, and it just doesn’t rank very important on what I do need to be doing.” She pauses. “Full disclosure though, I do have a boyfriend who I love.”

Half the class gags, the other half swoons, and she smiles.

\--

After the bell rings for lunch, a bunch of girls stay, clustering around her, asking her questions in rapid fire motion.

“Ms. Hastings, what was Mrs. Fields like when she was little?”

“Do you know the other Mrs. Fields? Are you friends? Is she nice?”

“How did she and our Mrs. Fields meet?”

“Ms. Hastings, what’s your boyfriend’s name? Is he cute? Are you  _ ever  _ going to marry him?”

“Maybe,” she says coyly, and they burst into laughter.

She talk to them for a little bit, telling them bits and pieces about Alison as a kid - the parts appropriate for them, anyway - and making them laugh. They clatter out of the room at once, carrying each other’s bags and swatting each other’s arms, calling goodbye to Spencer,  _ see you tomorrow miss,  _ to Ali.

When they leave, the room is very quiet. Alison sighs, turning to wipe the board.

“Hey, Ali?” says Spencer into the quiet room. “Thanks. Like, thank you so much.”

Ali puts down the eraser. “No, Spence,” she says, her voice quiet. “Thank  _ you.  _ And...I’m sorry.”

Spencer voices catches. “You don’t have to - ”

“I’m so goddamn sorry,” says Ali. “For all of it.” Her voice is trembling. “That was me, hurting you. Hurting all of you. You all deserved a better friend than who I  was to you. You all deserved..” she shakes her head.

“So did you,” says Spencer softly.

They hug tightly, and Spencer feels the enormous pressure in her chest, in her lungs, always, always, eroding away ever so slightly.

\--

Toby comes to pick her up, leaving work early, and she really does feel sixteen as she crosses the parking lot and hikes herself into his truck, leaning across to kiss him hello.

“How was your big, fancy presentation, Ms. Hastings?” he inquires, and she laughs, rolls down the window, leans her head out of it, and feels for the first time in a long time, like she’s grown and grown well and she’s better for it.

“Toby, we’re gonna be okay,” she says in response, as if it’s some great revelation, because maybe it is. There is wind in her hair, and she’s still leaning out of her same boyfriend’s same truck going down the same the roads, but everything is better. Everything is  _ so _ much better, and bizarrely, it feels like maybe it always will be.

“I know we are, Spence,” he says, making a careful turn. “I know we are.”

_ Hope breeds eternal misery,  _ she remembers she used to think, as he turns up the radio and starts to tell her about his day, jokes about Jason, her chiming in with how they have got to set them up with Aria already. They will go home and eat lunch, and then she’ll go to class this evening and he’ll put in a few more hours with the crew. They’ll come home and have dinner together - maybe they’ll have Aria over, and coincidentally, maybe he’ll bring Jason home with him. And they’ll wake up tomorrow, and do it again. And maybe it’ll be bad, maybe she’ll have a panic attack on the way to work or Toby will hear the clicking of a cane and have to stop what he’s doing and call her, but maybe -

it’ll be good. Maybe it’ll always be good, and maybe the hope of that is just enough to go another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you think x


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